Some organizations are using the upgrade to Windows 7 as a time to reevaluate whether they can finally take admin rights away from users. Under Windows XP this was mainly a question of file and registry permissions. For applications where this is the simple case, Windows 7 does intelligent, on the fly virtualization (UAC Virtualiation). Depending on the application, however, there are other areas of application interoperability where Windows 7 has tightened up on what can and cannot be done even with admin rights. Knowing how to analyze the underlying API calls allows non permissions problems to be isolated and mitigated. Application Compatibility Toolkit includes mitigation shims for many of these APIs. It also includes redirection (file / registry virtualization) for areas not covered by Windows 7's built-in UAC Virtualization.

Unnecessary COTS Upgrade CostsMost times vendors roll Windows 7 support into an upgraded version - they are understandably reluctant not to invest in an old code base. If the release is a major one, there may be upgrade costs and expensive user re-training costs as well. Understanding the free tools available in this space may allow you to make your current versions run properly. Across all of your applications this can result in a snowball effect for Desktop project budgets.

Qualifying & Troubleshooting Fixed ApplicationsIf you are dealing with a large application portfolio, even the best efforts by service providers and framework tools will yield some results that don't work as advertised. With the rights skills and tools you can qualify applications that have been fixed and you can provide helpful troubleshooting knowledge if you need to run an application through again.

Internally Written ApplicationsApplications that have been written by your company may still require special testing and troubleshooting - especially if your service provider or framework tool depends on a general knowledge base of applications that are commercially available.